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Arts, Briefly

Salman Rushdie and John Irving rallied to the support of the embattled Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass, and German bookstores reported booming demand for “Peeling Onions,” his new autobiography, in which he admits serving in the Waffen SS during World War II. Mr. Rushdie, who was marked for assassination by Iranian mullahs in 1989 when his novel “The Satanic Verses” led to an accusation of blasphemy against Islam, said yesterday that although he was shocked by Mr. Grass’s admission, “I feel the outrage is a little bit manufactured.” Mr. Rushdie told the BBC that Mr. Grass’s Waffen SS membership was perhaps forgivable because he was only 17 at the time. Mr. Irving, the author of “The World According to Garp” and other novels, said in an e-mail message to The Associated Press: “The fulminating in the German media has been obnoxious. Grass is a daring writer, and he has always been a daring man.” He also said, “Grass remains a hero to me, both as a writer and as a moral compass.” German bookstores began selling Mr. Grass’s autobiography Wednesday, two weeks earlier than planned.

Fictitious Author, Real Lawsuit

The fictitious author J T Leroy has enmeshed his publisher, his manager and the San Francisco woman identified as the actual author of his works in a lawsuit brought by a production company that optioned the film rights to the J T Leroy novel “Sarah.” Saying it was a victim of an elaborate literary hoax, Antidote Films, an independent film company run by the producers Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Mary Jane Skalski, filed the suit against Bloomsbury Publishers; Laura Albert, the author; and Judi Farkas, J T Leroy’s Hollywood manager, on Aug. 11 in District Court in Manhattan. The company is seeking to recover $45,000 in option payments, along with an additional $60,000 in development costs. In the complaint the producers wrote that they thought that they were buying the rights to the story of a real-life “talented, anguished artist, androgynous ingénue and recluse.” Following revelations of the hoax, they charged, the book they optioned was “discredited and a joke in the eyes of many.” They said in court papers that they had abandoned the project. The defendants were not immediately available for comment. WARREN ST. JOHN

Paris Mayor Deplores Holocaust Cartoons

The Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë,said yesterday that he was appalled by the exhibition in Tehran of more than 200 cartoons on the Holocaust, Reuters reported. In a letter to Iran’s ambassador to France, he said the show “intended to mock the tragedy of Shoah and to trivialize a new anti-Semitic bid under the false pretext of art and freedom of speech.” Organizers of the exhibition — in a country whose President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called the Holocaust a myth — have said it was intended to challenge Western taboos about discussing the mass killing of European Jews. Denial of the Holocaust is a crime in France. The International Holocaust Cartoons Contest was sponsored by Hamshahri, Iran’s best-selling newspaper, in retaliation for the publication last year of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in European newspapers.

Priceless Peruvian Headdress Recovered

Scotland Yard reported yesterday that a “priceless ancient Peruvian headdress” depicting a sea god had been seized by the arts and antiques squad of the Metropolitan Police in London. Made from an embossed sheet of gold, the headdress is considered an example of Mochica art dating to A.D. 700. Without elaboration, an official announcement said that a London solicitor’s firm assisted in the return on behalf of an unidentified client. The headdress, believed to have been looted in 1988 from a tomb at an archaeological site in Peru, is to be returned through diplomatic channels.

A painting of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-87), bought for a relative pittance in 1916 by the National Gallery in Britain at a Christie’s auction and consigned to gather dust in a warehouse after being written off as an 18th-century fake, has been rediscovered, The Guardian of London reported. Now it is believed to be one of only two paintings made in the lifetime or shortly after the death of Mary, the cousin and heir to Elizabeth I, who was executed because she was seen as a Roman Catholic threat to Protestant England. Dendrochronology, a method of estimating the age of wood, was employed to establish that the panel on which the image of Mary was painted dated to the late 16th century, the National Gallery said. The portrait, bought for £50, or $95 at today’s exchange rate, has now been put on view.

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The Guardian also reported that archaeologists in China have unearthed two 2,500-year-old terra cotta figurines that may be precursors of the famous army of 8,000 statues buried with China’s first emperor. The statues were found in the ruins of a workshop in Shaanxi.

After a steep drop in business in the last few weeks, “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” will close after its performance of Sept. 3. It will have played 36 previews and 666 regular performances. ... The Tony Award-winning director John Doyle’s production of the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical “Company” will open on Broadway on Nov. 29 at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. The show will feature the cast, headed by Raúl Esparza, that received enthusiastic reviews from local and national critics when it played earlier this year in Cincinnati. ... The acclaimed National Theater of Greece will present six performances of Aeschylus’ “Persians,” directed by and starring Lydia Koniordou, at City Center from Sept. 16 through Sept. 20. ... At the Lyceum Theater, three of the leading roles in the much-praised Martin McDonagh play “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” will change beginning tomorrow. That’s when Jordan Bridges will replace James Binder as the tortured James. On Tuesday Christopher Denham will succeed David Wilmot as the fearsome Padraic, and Jerzy Gwiazdowski will succeed Domhnall Gleeson as the dimwitted teenager Davey.

‘Awakening’ on Broadway

“Spring Awakening,” the rock musical that is transferring uptown from the Atlantic Theater Company, will begin previews on Friday, Nov. 17, at the Eugene O’Neill Theater, though no opening date has been set, the producers said yesterday. ... Starting with previews on Sept. 8, the Mint Theater will present a revival of “John Ferguson,” a 1919 tragedy by St. John Ervine about a poor and pious Irish farmer whose faith is tested when an expected loan from his brother in America fails to arrive. ... The run of the hit musical “[title of show]” has been extended for three weeks, through Oct. 1, at the Vineyard Theater. ... A show-business sampler will be offered in Times Square on Sept. 10 at the annual free “Broadway on Broadway” presentation. Beginning at 11:30 a.m. the production, with Martin Short as host, will present performances from nearly every current musical and sneak peaks at several shows scheduled for the 2006-7 season.

Footnote

The Tony Award-winning actress Jane Krakowski (“Nine”) has joined the cast of NBC’s new workplace comedy series “30 Rock” to play the role of the star of “The Girlie Show,” a network variety program that is the backdrop of “30 Rock.” The show, featuring Alec Baldwin as a meddling network executive, goes on the air Oct. 11.